Mexico’s domestic workers are one of the most poorly treated workers in their country.

“Maids, Mostly Indigenous, Targets of Racism, Abuse” Mexico’s domestic workers are one of the most poorly treated workers in their country. They often start working in their early teens, even though the minimum employment age is 16, and are subject to long hours, minimum wage pay, discrimination and most of all, sexual harassment and abuse by their employers. These women are making around $140 a month, around minimum wage, while other occupations in Mexico City are two to three times that amount. A major problem with this line of work is that the work is divided into live-in and live-out maids, where federal law only addresses the live-in maids, but in very vague terms. So that means that employers can solely determine the maid’s salary, benefits, hours and personal treatment. The only guidelines are that they should have a decent place to live, good food to eat and adequate time to rest, which are very vague and under the employers’ discretion. The live-out maids typically earn twice as much as the live-ins because the live-ins are receiving free room and board. Also, live-in workers are in general poorer, less educated and less apt to fight for higher wages. And although there has been years of efforts to get maids legally recognized as part of the work force, with guaranteed hours, pay and benefits, nothing has been done at all. These issues concerning Mexican women and their work as maids, contributes to Bridget Anderson and her views about domestic work in, “The Legacy of Slavery”. She views domestic work as another form of slavery, where the person has no rights and is regarded as property to the employer. The maids in Mexico are subject to the same problems that Anderson touches upon in her work. For live-in maids, it is often hard to determine when you are on or off the job; usually there is a sense that the domestic who is a live-in, is always on the job, and that if you are a live-out maid, you h…